Different Deckbuilding

[Dragoon]

After having seen the Gencon Star Wars: the Card Game demo video's, there was one thing that caught my eye. Instead of normal deckbuilding, they had blocks of 6 cards. If you wanted to add 1 of these cards to your deck, you had to add the whole block to your deck. 10 of these blocks make up your deck.

I think it's interesting to expand in this direction when designing a game. I think restrictions on the amount or card types make up for more intesting decks.

Despite the fact that I find this system pretty interesting, I also have qualms about it. I fear that decks will become more the same, instead of becoming more diversive.

Any thoughts on this?

[Kevashim]

I like the idea of this, though I think I'd have to try it out before I have a strong opinion on how well it actually works.

My only qualm would be the fact that buying a booster would (I assume) net you 1 block, if you already own that block then your collection has gained nothing at all, you already own every card in that block so the entire booster would be repeats. Also card rarity comes to mind, are there rarer and more common blocks? As clearly individual cards cannot be rare in this setup...

[3XXXDDD]

What about a limit on colours your decking?

[Dragoon]

I like the idea of this, though I think I'd have to try it out before I have a strong opinion on how well it actually works.

My only qualm would be the fact that buying a booster would (I assume) net you 1 block, if you already own that block then your collection has gained nothing at all, you already own every card in that block so the entire booster would be repeats. Also card rarity comes to mind, are there rarer and more common blocks? As clearly individual cards cannot be rare in this setup...

The star wars game I mentioned is an LCG. Which mean they have fixed packs instead of random boosters.

What about a limit on colours your decking?

What do you mean?

[Typherion]

I haven't looked into yet, but based on what you've said, I don't think I like the idea.

The only positive seems to be that it makes deckbuilding much quicker. Instead of making a maximum of 60 card choices you only have to make 10 block choices. It's also possible they could tie this concept into the game in a way that promotes the theme.

However, it seems to have some big negatives. The restriction on deckbuilding is massive and seems counter to one of the main reasons people play these card games. Reducing the variety of decks will probably have a negative impact on the replayablitity of the game.

I could understand if the game were targeted towards children, but even kids are used to complicated deck building from the existing games. Surely there must be more to this idea...

[3XXXDDD]

I mean say you have Yellow/Green/Red. You can only deck up to 5 of X Colour. Kind of limiting your choices on the options the deck have.

Lets say Red is your control cards like 1 for 1 removal, Green are your battle cards like creatures and Yellow are your *Event* cards with big abilities.

[Dragoon]

I haven't looked into yet, but based on what you've said, I don't think I like the idea.

The only positive seems to be that it makes deckbuilding much quicker. Instead of making a maximum of 60 card choices you only have to make 10 block choices. It's also possible they could tie this concept into the game in a way that promotes the theme.

However, it seems to have some big negatives. The restriction on deckbuilding is massive and seems counter to one of the main reasons people play these card games. Reducing the variety of decks will probably have a negative impact on the replayablitity of the game.

I could understand if the game were targeted towards children, but even kids are used to complicated deck building from the existing games. Surely there must be more to this idea...

I agree with this. However, deckbuilding is pretty much uncharted grounds yet. I merely posted it to provoke discussion and brainstorm much in the idea.

Generally, my idea became this:
You get a block with 2 mandatory cards, and some optional cards. So a block might be
1 block card (The card that let's you pick this block)
1 unit
0 - 1 unit
1 - 2 unit
0 - 1 event.
0 - 2 support

I think this works the best for story reasons, such as having a lord not leaving his castle without a bodyguard or his most loyal retainer.

[Kevashim]

I really think that the blocks just take something away from the game and don't add anything. Assuming you are making a full deck of 60 cards then 10 of the 6 card blocks will be randomly shuffled together anyway. It just imposes a restriction on deckbuilding.

If it were made to somehow actually impact upon the game itself then it could be more worthwhile/interesting.

It would take a LOT of effort to get a balance between the blocks such that each 6 card block can offer something worthwhile to at least 1 strategy or 1 player. There is a risk that some blocks would be viewed as worthless and would never see actual play. It makes deck building faster/easier certainly, but it could reduce the ability of players to come up with new and interesting strategies.